Experience With Death

Throughout my life I have had many different experiences with death. The first death I remember is my Grandmother on my Mother’s side of the family. She was a great woman and I was very young. It was sad but I could not yet understand fully what this meant, or totally feel what it’s like to lose someone close. A few years later my Grandmother on my Father’s side died and I was a bit closer to her. At that point I was without God and still had a hard time understanding why people die and why it feels so weird. Not too long after that both of my cats died. One after another. At that time it felt bad. I loved my cats. But a week later it was no big deal. The loss of my grandmother still lingered, while I forgot about my cat’s deaths. Anytime my cats were brought up afterwards was because both cats died of cancer, which is shocking. Mainly because I have never heard of a cat dying of cancer before, and neither have most people.

The most recent death I have had to deal with was that of my Father. Just this February his liver failed among other things slowly poisoning his body, ruining his memory, and ultimately killed him. This was the worst death I have ever had to deal with. It seems as if a death of a parent should be. He was a great man, and yet the word “was” means that he no longer exists on earth. Now at this point in my life I have known Christ for about eight years. And up until a few days before he died I was worried that my dad was headed to hell. However I found he also had a relationship with Christ and I had nothing to worry about. Even with that affirmation there are still a few things I have trouble understanding, but I will talk about those later.

I know, and its obvious, that I am not the only person that has ever dealt with death. Likewise, these topics are interesting to more than just me. I have had many people around me have people close to them die also. It’s especially hard to help other people get over the death of loved ones. The only comfort I have about my Father is that I will see him again.

Recent Thoughts On Death

With the recent death of my Father, comes a few thoughts that have swam around in my head. These are things I am sure a lot of people have thought of. For these two items, I feel like there really is no resolution.

First of all, every time I drive home I have to come to the conclusion that Dad is not there. That no longer how hard I try or feel that I need to, I cannot speak to my Dad on this earth. I also have to come to the realization that he just does not exist anymore on earth. This is the weirdest part about death. All that personality, humor, wisdom, and love is gone. Everything my Father worked hard for has stopped. The timeline of Mark Bryan Bassett is over. So anything he made, whether craft or wealth, is no longer his, dispersed among his family and he cannot enjoy all the things he has created. The main things he created were me and my brother Mark. Enjoying relationships with my brother and I is also impossible on this planet. I will miss my dad. But luckily I will see him again in Heaven.

Second of all, and not quite as important, the kids I may one day have, will miss out on one great Grandfather. I knew the love and humor my dad could show them. He also lost an opportunity to see the kids I may one day create. Unless of course the kids I may make at some point in their lives accept Christ. Then in Heaven, they too will be able to meet him.

And so these are only two things I have thought about in that matter for some time on the topic of my own Father. But much more have I learned.

The Importance of Human Life

Human life brings happiness. The birth of a child brings a smile to a hopeful Mother’s face. Unless of course it was an accident. But even then it is hard for a Mother to give up her child, abortion or adoption, its still a struggle. Cat’s do not look at their kittens and smile. Cry when her babies meow wrong at her or not listen. If a cat is born on accident you put it down or give it away. No problem. If a human is mean constantly or maybe even physically abusive to his wife, do you immediately kill him? No. If a cat constantly bites anyone and everyone do you kill it? Yes. Why the difference?

As humans we have free will. But not only free will but the want to be free. We feel like certain things are wrong and certain things are correct and just. In  a court of law, the chainsaw that cut the man’s head off is not the one put in jail. If a man makes a woman hold a knife and kill a different man, it is not the woman nor the knife that gets sentenced. The one that gets sentenced is the one who willfully killed, with all the free choice they possess. A chainsaw does not have free choice. A knife does not have free choice. And the woman in that example did not have the choice either.

We know things are wrong. There are universal morals. Is it okay for me to rape your mother? Oh it is not? Okay well I am sure everyone on earth agrees and there is no other way to explain why other than Jeremiah 31:33b

I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

God wrote his law on our hearts, that is indeed why we know what is wrong. We are important to God because he made us in his image. (Gen 1:27)

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Why do we love according to God? (1 John 4:19)

We love because he first loved us.

And why does it hurt when people die, and seem so unreal and hard to understand? Well the Lord did indeed make us in his image. However he is infinite and when Adam & Eve first sinned that made humans have expiration dates (not actual dates). We were meant to be eternal. And still we have the opportunity to live eternally. God says he sent his one and only son to die on the cross for us (john 3:16). If we accept that fact, we can receive his gift of forgiveness. Letting us go to heaven no matter what. Do you think you are good enough go to heaven? You are not. If heaven exists, then what God says about Heaven goes. And he says if you sin once then you are screwed. Not only were you born with sin but you know you have sinned otherwise. Plus Ephesians 2:8,9 lets us know the only way is through God’s forgiveness and nothing we do “good” matters when it comes to the matter of going to Heaven.

Conclusion

Because of these things, it is much harder to believe that there is not a caring loving creator God, then it is to believe. 1 John 4:8 says God is love. I understand and believe that statement. Because of that I have learned how to love people much better by studying the character of God himself. Also, in a finite world, with our finite bodies, it is hard to see the Pros of life & death, rather than the Cons.

The questions I have for you…

1. Does anything hurt more than death?
2. Knowing these things is it still possible to say a creator God does not exist?
3. Have you had to answer the question “If a loving God does indeed exist, why does he kill the innocent and let the evil live?”, if so how did you answer it. Were you the one asking it? And how was it answered?

The question is, what does make us different? Well I thought of a few things.

True Love
John 13:35
We show actual compassion for the lost. The people Jesus himself showed love for. Feeling the need to help people who are struggling and rebuke those who are involved in possibly personally harmful activities.

True Faith
Philippians 4:6
We invest our heart into our relationship with the Lord. Like any other relationship, the more you get to know someone, look to them for support and receive it, you begin to trust them more. The above verse talks about not even worrying about anything but praying about everything and thanking God for what he has already done. This means we are to have faith that God will provide for us anything and everything we need. Thankfulness clearly plays a large role in this.

True Servants
Matthew 10:8
We give because God gave us everything and more. Those who are mature and a part of Xenos stick to this principle. Many needy people appear and are open to the Lord’s calling. However they sometimes need more then just a relationship with God. When God puts people he has blessed with many gifts into the life of people who are not as well set in the world, miracles occur. People give up their selfish prideful ways and learn to serve. God forgave them for all sins past present and future and is now instructing them to do the same. Another thing that is said is “Love your neighbor”(Matthew 22:39). So through this people are served. If they are hungry they receive the food. If they are struggling finding a job people who are experienced with that help out. If someone isn’t old enough to transport themselves to meetings or to their job or whatever they need to get to, people are there to help.

True Witnesses
Matthew 28:19
God tells us to go and teach the world about him. Obviously we are not reaching the whole world but we are actually reaching people for Christ. Year after year more people come to Christ giving their life a 180 degree turn. People who struggled with drug, sex, and alcohol addictions feel no more need for those things and yearn after deep relationships instead. Helping and loving people then becomes a central part of their lives.

What’s the alternative?
2 Timothy 4:3

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,

Every city in America is full of ministries like these that call themselves “churches”, whatever that word means. And these “churches” are full of “religions”, again, a word that means whatever you want it to basically.

And so people go to the nearest “religion hut” with their Sunday desire to feel clean again after a week worth of doing what the world desires of you. If we didn’t live in this society, and we read such things from a book, we could easily see how enslaved we are to this world. The daily grind is what we are enslaved to. Constantly doing the same things day after day. “Religion Huts” just became a part of that grind because first of all they are hard to avoid, and second of all society says we should probably choose a “religion”.

Anyways. What happened was at some point, church went sour. Following soon after that, teachers got hired in, not everyone agreed with what they had to say. Some people then leave and go to churches with teachers they can agree with. It’s all a big cycle and none of it matters. There is not a large percentage of churches that have teachers that all agree and can all get up in someone’s place if someone is sick or cannot teach for whatever reason.

That is the alternative. Unlike what the early church had. Unlike what Jesus said it should be like. I don’t want that. It’s clear why so many other people turn away from their “Religious Huts”. They are boring and a big waste of time.

Pardon my dust.

Are you thankful?

I’m just wondering, because you sure do seem down.

Phillipians 4:6 - Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

We all have things we can be thankful for.

First off, God sent his son to die for us. Not only was that spectacular and miraculous, it was a selfless, loving act. Through God’s son, King Joshua, also known as Jesus Christ, we can have a relationship with God. Not only that, but forgiveness of all our sins and an open door to heaven.

Start off like this. Ask the question, “Am I thankful?”. It shouldn’t take long for you to realize whether the answer is yes or no. If not you should look to point one first. Obviously if you don’t believe in the creator God, or that Jesus came to die for us, then you won’t be able to feel the comfort of total forgiveness.

However alongside God’s main gift, He has also given us many other things. If you have a fully working body that’s already one thing. Here are a few other things…

• Do you have somewhere to live?
• Do you have friends?
• Are you healthy?
• Do you have a job?
• Do you have a providing family?

If you say, “all of the above!“, then the question asked is are you praying about this stuff, thanking God for what he has given you? This is what Paul says we should be doing in 1 Thessalonians 5:18,

give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus

Even if you are thankful and praying there is one other thing that can get to us easily. Worry. Are you worried about this stuff? That you may lose your house, friends, family and job? Earlier quoted is Phillipians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything“. The more thankful you are for the things God has done for you, the more you can rely on him, knowing he will answer your prayers, so that you do not have to worry.

If you said, “none of the above“, or realize you are worried about these things and don’t believe that God can help, then the problem starts back at step one. In order to feel forgiven, guiltless, free, and loved, you have to listen to the many teachings of Jesus. He calls you to accept the fact that he has come to die for you and then raised from the dead so your sins can be forgiven and you can have a relationship with him. Galatians 5:1 says, “it was for freedom that Christ set us free…“. God’s goal is that we can be free of the enslaving planet we live on. A world which teaches us that we are not almighty, or perfect. A world that shows us, on the news, or even in our backyard that people are messed up and need some type of help, no matter what level of “messed up” that they are on.

To read more of what Jesus had to say about this and many other things, turn to the Gospel of John. Or go here and read it.

If you already have the main gift that God has given us, and are thankful for it and the many other things, it’s time to let him know. You don’t have to wait for a special moment, or fancy place. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5, that anytime is the best time!

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 – Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Anyways. My Dad. Scares me.

Up until now I’ve been strong. Not much of what has occurred with my dad has affected me. I love him to death but most of what has been told to me (about previous conditions), seemed like no big deal.

For possibly the last four times I have had to teach home church, ironically my dad goes checks into the hospital. This week I have to teach. And yes. He is in.

Only this time. I’m scared. possibly more than I should be. But Dads’ liver. And his kidneys. Are failing.

I can only pray he gets better.

And I can only pray, and dream that I get an opportunity to share the gospel once more. To a father, with open ears.

____

My Dad’s only friends are dipsomaniacs.

All they can offer him is more alcohol. And all that equals is pain, discomfort, and ultimately death.

My father’s son. Me. Well, I know the Lord.

What the Lord can offer is Hope, Truth, and Love.

And Life.

The conversation starts in 1991 with Donna Haraway. She wrote all about it in her largely opinionated “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” The topics she wrote about in her article were wide and ready for further discussion. Most of what she had to say did have to do with cyborgs, but when she trailed off to talk about feminism it no longer concerned me, or this conversation. Donna does start the topic of how cyborgs will slowly kill the regular American family life. She says, “the main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring…” and“…illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential.”(Haraway 151) I believe what she means is at one point we found our identities in our family; however, our identities are becoming more and more enveloped by technology. I often feel this way with my own family. Although biblically I know I am to honor my parents, I regularly feel voluntarily alienated from them. When we receive everything we want and need from technology, we lose reliance and faith in our parents, almost completely cutting them out of who we are.

Later in 2003, Kevin Warwick agrees in “Cyborg Morals, Cyborg Values, Cyborg Ethics” when he says “the human and machine together become an integrated system, a Cyborg, part human part machine.” (Warwick 131) Now I did mention how the change of humans to become cyborgs does have a positive side. Kevin seems to agree with me on this point when he states “Some could regard a blind man with his cane as a Cyborg, the cane feeding important information on the local environment, to the man. Meanwhile a hearing aid for a deaf person or even a pair of worn glasses could come into the same category…”(Warwick 131) We can see how even people that do not use computers can even be seen as cyborgs. In a lot of cases, there is no way how the mentioned subjects would cause someone’s relationships to deteriorate. However, a cane, or even a hearing aid would be quite the addition to ones identity. Whether nicknames are given to someone like “Jenny the girl with the cane”, or “Deaf as-a-lame-dog David”, you could see how this would affect the way someone sees himself or herself.

Over the years, the idea of all humans being cyborgs becomes more and more clear. We now have more examples of what fictional cyborgs look like and at points, we envy certain abilities they possess. If a certain trait is seen in a movie that is not yet possible by human beings, there is probably a tech somewhere trying to figure it out. It seemed like Andy Clark understood this in Natural-born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence, when he said:

Pretty soon, and still without the need for wires, surgery or bodily alterations, we shall be kin to the Terminator, to Eve 8, to Cable…just fill in your favorite fictional Cyborg. Perhaps we already are. For we shall be Cyborgs not in the merely superficial sense of combining flesh and wires, but in the more profound sense of being human-technology symbionts: thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological brain and non-biological circuitry (Clark p. 20)

As time goes on, and we become more involved with technology for a sense of identity development, we tend to lose our sense of how to actually feel loved. Andy also wrote “New waves of user-sensitive technology may soon bring this ancient process to a climax, as our minds and identities become ever more deeply enmeshed in a non-biological matrix of machines, tools, props, codes and semi-intelligent daily objects.” When we stop looking to humans for love and get our love bank full of temporary fulfilling emotions, that at the end of the day seem to vanish, we become depressed and lonely. We get down to wondering why do I feel this way, and never understand why. We can see now how the types of technology we have today are beginning to affect the world around us, as well as generations to come.

As the conversation continues, a bit more recently we can see that the very technology that is here to help and serve us can start to become a problem. Don Tapscott agrees with this though in “Grown up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World” when he says “chances are you know a young person aged 11-31. You may be a parent, aunt, teacher, or manager. You have seen these young people multitasking five activities at once.”(Tapscott 101) When we learn to do many things at once, and that is the main way we do things, when it come time to study or read a book we become uninterested and bored. Doctors are prescribing pills to try and stop this issue while the problem is not that the person has ADD, but that they have trained themselves to not focus.

Later, Andy goes on to say, “They use the phone to text incessantly, surf the Web, find directions, take pictures and make videos, and collaborate. They seem to be on Facebook every chance they get, including at work. Instant messaging on Skype is always running in the background. And what’s with those video games? How can someone play World of Warcraft for five hours straight?” And we can see that Tapscott probably comes from an older age group in which people never really spent any time playing video games. But it is possible to do all of the mentioned activities at the same time if you switch from thing to thing. All of the mentioned items are browsed so frequently because they all involve certain parts of our identities. People strive for real relationships in an imaginary world like World of Warcraft. When they turn off the game where does that leave them?

Lastly, Albert Lejeune and Hamid Nach worked together to develop “Coping with Information Technology Challenges to Identity: A Theoretical Framework” In this article they make a very good point on identity “…the question ‘who am I?’” involves not only who or what people believe themselves to be but also how they should respond to social experiences and be regarded by others. So people will continuously act so as their reflected image match the image they hold about themselves.”(Lejeune, Nach 17) On any web-based social networking website, you can basically make-up who you are. After you meet a few people that believe the identity you have created, you have to live up to it. In high school, most students define their identity and start to live by it. By the end of their years in high school, they have developed their identity to a point where it is truthful. Over the four years, you may decide to change your identity altogether.

In conclusion, you can see how technology is already affecting us as well as how it will affect generations to come. How hard will it be for children to be raised by parents who are not that deeply concerned with family relationships? Will families be able to stay together at all in generations to come? Is it possible for people to drop their false identities that they birthed in this evil world system and return to a life of truth and love? Most of these things I have no answer for. I only hope that technology will not be the thing that, just like in so many movies, is what causes the end of the world.

Works Cited

Clark, Andy. Natural-born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2004. Print.

Haraway, Donna Jeanne. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: the Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. 149-81. Print.

Nach, Hamid, and Albert Lejeune. “Coping with Information Technology Challenges to Identity: A Theoretical Framework.” Computers in Human Behavior July 26.4 (2010): 618-29. Print.

Tapscott, Don. Grown up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.

Warwick, Kevin. “Cyborg Morals, Cyborg Values, Cyborg Ethics.” Ethics and Information Technology 5.3 (2003): 131-37. Print.

—-I got a bad grade on this sadly. I am not a writer.

BUY IT ON ITUNES!!!

This is a “Learn from my mistakes” type blog. I’ve made a lot of mistakes growing up through high school, so I have decided to share them with you. The point of this post and the several others that will follow, is to inform you of which mistakes I made.

Eleanor Roosevelt put it just right,

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Phil Knight, founder of Nike once said,

“The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, but that we are making too few.”

Now even Phil Knight, probably a millionaire or even a trillionaire by now, realizes the importance of learning from other peoples mistakes. I’m sure his company has done plenty of things wrong, as well as learned from these mistakes. If you were planning on starting a business, you wouldn’t just go and start a business without first researching what exactly you need to and not to do.

As a high schooler, you feel as if the rest of your life, your adult life, is so far away! But be careful, before you know it high school will be over and it will be decision time. College or no college. Thats really the only thing teachers will warn you about. Do your teachers tell you “although high school seems rough at times, its nothing like what college will be for you”? At least for me, in high school, almost all my teachers would alert us “we are doing it this way to prepare you for college”. Now I wasn’t the best student in high school (which i regret completely) but I did do all of my work (well… most of it) and absolutely none of my high school curriculum prepared me for any of what I have to do in college.

Sometimes I wonder if the teachers really do feel like they are preparing us. Maybe after a whole year of students dropping out, not applying for colleges, and some kids going to jail, they go home and weep. Cry about how they’ve failed, and wonder why they even chose teaching as a career. Its either that or they just dont care. Most of my teachers were too caught up with being Mr. Cool-Guy.

If your going to be a teacher, learn from their mistakes. (I laugh as writing that) But thats not the point, the point is that I might not be the most messed up college-aged male in the world, but throughout my Christian life I have made more mistakes then what would be easily believable. And even though I have learned from many mistakes, I’m still making some, that one day I might write to the new-age college-aged kids.

PART 1: DON’T TAKE HIGH SCHOOL FOR GRANTED

To say I tried really hard in high school would be, well, half true (maybe just a quarter true). At some points during high school I really did put my best foot forward, but just one good foot is not enough. High school (if you went to a public school) is basically free! School fees at high school are the same they were in elementary school, SUPER CHEAP! On top of that, if you start off doing really well in high school, you can do post-secondary and goto college for free, while still in high school, like Adam Esterle. He will almost be a sophomore his freshman year of college.

On top of that, basically to be almost prepared for college, you have to have done very well in high school. Its as “simple as dat” as Kid Cudi would say. Because I didn’t fully take advantage of everything offered in high school, I’ve struggled through my first semester and am already doing the same this semester. Their is homework every night, more than I’ve ever had. (Point is college is tough for me. What was my mistake? I took high school for granted).

Did you know that college is very expensive? Tuition for my first year at Kent was already $8,430. On top of that you have to buy books for all your classes, this semester (not including last semester) totaled something around $230. Also, every semester the school you are enrolled in also has a fee (I am enrolled in the College of Business at Kent State), the fee for my school was $60. Most classes have small fees, and so on. But know this, if you do amazing in high school you most likely wont have to pay a dollar for school. There are many scholarships available that will cover your whole tuition as long as you put some effort towards earning them. Some of them you need to write essays for, explaining why you want it, or why your a good candidate. But overall its not that hard.

A few tips…

1. If your a senior, your already late at applying to colleges, but if you have applied, do your FAFSA now (even if you are rich, there are scholarship opportunities waiting for you just for filling out some online paperwork
   1. If you’ve done terrible all of high school and dont even understand how you are even considered for graduation, college might now be for you just yet, take a year off (contrary to popular belief) it might be harder to start back at school, but you need some time to get focused, make some money to pay for school and so on…
2. If your a junior, this summer start applying to college
3. If your a sophomore and have been taking high school for granted, you still have time to turn everything around, get focused, get a planner, do all your homework, and put the most effort you ever have in school
4. If your a freshman, its only your second quarter of high school, your 100% safe right now if you got straight F’s your first semester. Rethink what you’ve been doing wrong and do better!
5. If your a high schooler, read this post, ask questions to people older than you who have done everything you have, don’t look at college like you have to figure out everything for yourself, be humble, let some people help!

Hey man, how’s it going?

Eh’, can’t complain.

Are you kidding me? Why can’t you complain? This world is terrible! I know that there is only one thing

that makes me feel like I can’t complain. That one thing is God. I know most of the time at school or at the office I especially feel like complaining. Actually, if you know me well you probably know I like to complain no matter where I am at. To say you “can’t complain” when your stressed at school, or to say the same when your enslaved by the man at work, is a lie. Why not complain?

People may even like you better if you tell the truth. Don’t get me wrong, complaining too much is not the right idea, but getting some feelings out is. Work might not be the most appropriate place to do that, but whether or not people want to hear it, they will at least act like they are listening. Usually people have someone at work they can talk to, but mostly just nonsense.

Why waste time debating sports, your favorite music, or even clothes? Why not use your free time wisely and talk about whats wrong, with you, with the world, with the person your talking to.

Are you all stressed out about school? Let some people know! Is work rough? Tell somebody!

How are you doing?

Good.

Ninety percent of the time (rough guess) you will get that answer or different variations of the same thing. Sometimes its the truth. If someone asked me right now how I was doing, I’d say good. Although I know I would say the same thing if I was doing bad. Why must we lie so frequently?

Is it because we just want to avoid a serious conversation? Or is it because we feel like we are “doing good” even though underneath it all nothing is good and we are severely depressed. No one wants to admit that kind of thing.

How are you doing?

Well I’m severely depressed.

I doubt you’ll ever get that response.

We are personal beings, yet we have become so impersonal.

My podcast review of bruxy – the end of religion